Glossary

The list below defines some of the basic terminology of the Android platform.

.apk file

Android application package file. Each
Android application is compiled and packaged in a single file that
includes all of the application's code (.dex files), resources, assets,
and manifest file. The application package file can have any name but
must use the .apk extension. For example:
myExampleAppname.apk. For convenience, an application package
file is often referred to as an ".apk".

Android programs are compiled into .dex (Dalvik Executable) files, which
are in turn zipped into a single .apk file on the device. .dex files can
be created by automatically translating compiled applications written in
the Java programming language.

Action

A description of something that an Intent sender wants done. An action is
a string value assigned to an Intent. Action strings can be defined by Android
or by a third-party developer. For example, android.intent.action.VIEW
for a Web URL, or com.example.rumbler.SHAKE_PHONE for a custom application
to vibrate the phone.

A single screen in an application, with supporting Java code, derived
from the Activity class. Most commonly, an activity is
visibly represented by a full screen window that can receive and handle UI
events and perform complex tasks, because of the Window it uses to render
its window. Though an Activity is typically full screen, it can also be
floating or transparent.

adb

Android Debug Bridge, a command-line debugging application included with the
SDK. It provides tools to browse the device, copy tools on the device, and
forward ports for debugging. If you are developing in Eclipse using the
ADT Plugin, adb is integrated into your development environment. See
Android Debug Bridge
for more information.

Application

From a component perspective, an Android application consists of one
or more activities, services, listeners, and intent receivers. From a
source file perspective, an Android application consists of code,
resources, assets, and a single manifest. During compilation, these files
are packaged in a single file called an application package file (.apk).

A drawing surface that handles compositing of the actual bits against
a Bitmap or Surface object. It has methods for standard computer drawing
of bitmaps, lines, circles, rectangles, text, and so on, and is bound to a
Bitmap or Surface. Canvas is the simplest, easiest way to draw 2D objects
on the screen. However, it does not support hardware acceleration, as
OpenGL ES does. The base class is Canvas.

A data-abstraction layer that you can use to safely expose your
application's data to other applications. A content provider is built on
the ContentProvider class, which handles content
query strings of a specific format to return data in a specific format.
See
Content Providers topic for more information.

The Android platform's virtual machine. The Dalvik VM is an
interpreter-only virtual machine that executes files in the Dalvik
Executable (.dex) format, a format that is optimized for efficient storage
and memory-mappable execution. The virtual machine is register-based, and
it can run classes compiled by a Java language compiler that have been
transformed into its native format using the included "dx" tool.
The VM runs on top of Posix-compliant operating systems, which it relies
on for underlying functionality (such as threading and low level memory
management). The Dalvik core class library is intended to provide a
familiar development base for those used to programming with Java Standard
Edition, but it is geared specifically to the needs of a small mobile
device.

DDMS

Dalvik Debug Monitor Service, a GUI debugging application included
with the SDK. It provides screen capture, log dump, and process
examination capabilities. If you are developing in Eclipse using the ADT
Plugin, DDMS is integrated into your development environment. See Using DDMS to learn more about the program.

Dialog

A floating window that acts as a lightweight
form. A dialog can have button controls only and is intended to perform a
simple action (such as button choice) and perhaps return a value. A dialog
is not intended to persist in the history stack, contain complex layout,
or perform complex actions. Android provides a default simple dialog for
you with optional buttons, though you can define your own dialog layout.
The base class for dialogs is Dialog.

A compiled visual resource that can be used as a background, title, or
other part of the screen. A drawable is typically loaded into another UI
element, for example as a background image. A drawable is not able to
receive events, but does assign various other properties such as "state"
and scheduling, to enable subclasses such as animation objects or image
libraries. Many drawable objects are loaded from drawable resource files
— xml or bitmap files that describe the image. Drawable resources
are compiled into subclasses of android.graphics.drawable. For
more information about drawables and other resources, see Resources.

An message object that you can use to launch or communicate with other
applications/activities asynchronously. An Intent object is an instance of
Intent. It includes several criteria fields that you can
supply, to determine what application/activity receives the Intent and
what the receiver does when handling the Intent. Available criteria include
include the desired action, a category, a data string, the MIME type of
the data, a handling class, and others. An application sends
an Intent to the Android system, rather than sending it directly to
another application/activity. The application can send the Intent to a
single target application or it can send it as a broadcast, which can in
turn be handled by multiple applications sequentially. The Android system
is responsible for resolving the best-available receiver for each Intent,
based on the criteria supplied in the Intent and the Intent Filters
defined by other applications. For more information, see Intents and
Intent Filters.

A filter object that an application declares in its manifest file, to
tell the system what types of Intents each of its components is willing to
accept and with what criteria. Through an intent filter, an application
can express interest in specific data types, Intent actions, URI formats,
and so on. When resolving an Intent, the system evaluates all of the
available intent filters in all applications and passes the Intent to the
application/activity that best matches the Intent and criteria. For more
information, see Intents and
Intent Filters.

An application class that listens for Intents that are broadcast,
rather than being sent to a single target application/activity. The system
delivers a broadcast Intent to all interested broadcast receivers, which
handle the Intent sequentially.

An XML file that each application must define, to describe the
application's package name, version, components (activities, intent
filters, services), imported libraries, and describes the various
activities, and so on. See The
AndroidManifest.xml File for complete information.

Nine-patch / 9-patch / Ninepatch image

A resizeable bitmap resource that can be used for backgrounds or other
images on the device. See
Nine-Patch Stretchable Image for more information.

Android provides OpenGL ES libraries that you can use for fast,
complex 3D images. It is harder to use than a Canvas object, but
better for 3D objects. The android.opengl and
javax.microedition.khronos.opengles packages expose
OpenGL ES functionality.

Nonprogrammatic application components that are external to the
compiled application code, but which can be loaded from application code
using a well-known reference format. Android supports a variety of
resource types, but a typical application's resources would consist of UI
strings, UI layout components, graphics or other media files, and so on.
An application uses resources to efficiently support localization and
varied device profiles and states. For example, an application would
include a separate set of resources for each supported local or device
type, and it could include layout resources that are specific to the
current screen orientation (landscape or portrait). For more information
about resources, see Resources and
Assets. The resources of an application are always stored in the
res/* subfolders of the project.

Service

An object of class Service that runs in the
background (without any UI presence) to perform various persistent
actions, such as playing music or monitoring network activity.

An object of type Surface representing a block of
memory that gets composited to the screen. A Surface holds a Canvas object
for drawing, and provides various helper methods to draw layers and resize
the surface. You should not use this class directly; use
SurfaceView instead.

A View object that wraps a Surface for drawing, and exposes methods to
specify its size and format dynamically. A SurfaceView provides a way to
draw independently of the UI thread for resource-intensive operations
(such as games or camera previews), but it uses extra memory as a result.
SurfaceView supports both Canvas and OpenGL ES graphics. The base class is
SurfaceView.

A set of properties (text size, background color, and so on) bundled
together to define various default display settings. Android provides a
few standard themes, listed in R.style (starting with
"Theme_").

URIs in Android

Android uses URI strings as the basis for requesting data in a content
provider (such as to retrieve a list of contacts) and for requesting
actions in an Intent (such as opening a Web page in a browser). The URI
scheme and format is specialized according to the type of use, and an
application can handle specific URI schemes and strings in any way it
wants. Some URI schemes are reserved by system components. For example,
requests for data from a content provider must use the
content://. In an Intent, a URI using an http://
scheme will be handled by the browser.

View

An object that draws to a rectangular area on the screen and handles
click, keystroke, and other interaction events. A View is a base class for
most layout components of an Activity or Dialog screen (text boxes,
windows, and so on). It receives calls from its parent object (see
viewgroup, below)to draw itself, and informs its parent object about where
and how big it would like to be (which may or may not be respected by the
parent). For more information, see View.

A container object that groups a set of child Views. The viewgroup is
responsible for deciding where child views are positioned and how large
they can be, as well as for calling each to draw itself when appropriate.
Some viewgroups are invisible and are for layout only, while others have
an intrinsic UI (for instance, a scrolling list box). Viewgroups are all
in the widget package, but extend
ViewGroup.

One of a set of fully implemented View subclasses that render form
elements and other UI components, such as a text box or popup menu.
Because a widget is fully implemented, it handles measuring and drawing
itself and responding to screen events. Widgets are all in the
android.widget package.

Window

In an Android application, an object derived from the abstract class
Window that specifies the elements of a generic
window, such as the look and feel (title bar text, location and content of
menus, and so on). Dialog and Activity use an implementation of this class
to render a window. You do not need to implement this class or use windows
in your application.